UGA Press author's new play recalls a woman's lonely stand against racism

Julia Oliver

The latest work by Montgomery, Alabama writer Julia Oliver, whose third novel DEVOTION was published by the UGA Press, is a one-act play titled Juliette's Journal. The play is about a white librarian, Juliette Hampton Morgan, who publicly empathized with the protest that became the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal chapter in the civil rights movement. Oliver was inspired to write the script after she read Westchester, New York author Mary Stanton's scholarly biography of the Montgomery heroine, JOURNEY TOWARD JUSTICE (also published by the UGA Press).

Juliette Hampton Morgan

(courtesy Encyclopedia of Alabama and

Birmingham Public Library Archives)

When the Staged Reading and Scholarly Discussion of Juliette's Journal takes place on Sunday afternoon, September 25, in Smith Hall Auditorium of Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Mary Stanton will participate as one of the scholars. Sponsors for this event, which has received grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Alabama Humanities Foundation, are the Cloverdale Playhouse and Huntingdon College. The cast of fourteen area actors is directed by Caroline Reddick Lawson.

Mary Stanton

Julia Oliver writes a column, The Literary Scene, which comes out on the third Sunday of each month in the Montgomery Advertiser. She also reviews books for the Alabama Writers' Forum website.

Looking at the accomplishments of the War on Poverty

As Washington trims the social safety net, a new book from Georgia urges us to take seriously the War on Poverty’s accomplishments. The debt limit deal brokered last month virtually guarantees dramatic cuts to programs that serve poor and working people. Given Washington’s embrace of austerity, Annelise Orleck and Lisa Hazirjian’s new collection THE WAR ON POVERTY: A NEW GRASSROOTS HISTORY is especially timely. It brings together original essays about the antipoverty programs of the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. Orleck and Hazirjian note that the Great Society’s collective impact is staggering; in the twenty-first century one in seven Americans receives food stamps and community health centers are the largest primary care system in the nation.

But the War on Poverty’s local effects – the mobilization of poor people, the cultivation of new community leaders, the challenge to traditional power structures – are arguably just as important. This book introduces readers to Cherokees in Oklahoma, poor whites in Appalachia, civil rights activists in Memphis, and Asian Americans in New York’s Chinatown – all of them not simply receiving federal aid, but creating innovative programs to fight their own wars on poverty. As Michael B. Katz of the University of Pennsylvania puts it, these essays “bring to life the War on Poverty at the grassroots, where it was really fought.”

The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History contains new pieces by many of the leading historians of politics and policy in twentieth-century America, including the authors of two prizewinning books from Georgia – Susan Ashmore, author of CARRY IT ON, and Kent Germany, author of NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE PROMISES. It also complements Georgia’s new edition of Allen Matusow’s classic THE UNRAVELING OF AMERICA.

Short Takes: Ecstatic and Incensed

BEAR DOWN BEAR NORTH receives a starred review in Booklist on the heels of a starred PW review: "Moustakis' tales of desperate strategies for survival in a dramatically harsh, imperiled, and beautiful land are a perfect choice for the prestigious Flannery O'Connor Award." Moustakis and the book were also featured in the Anchorage Daily News.

Booklist also praises Janisse Ray's DRIFTING INTO DARIEN: "Ray, who danced nature writing into new and fertile terrain with An Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, introduces readers to one of the glories of the South, the Altamaha River. . . . Ray's encompassing, gracefully informative homage to what the Nature Conservancy has designated as one of the '75 Last Great Places' in the world is ecstatic and incensed." An excerpt from the book is featured at Southern Spaces.

Library Journal reviews the forthcoming PHILLIS WHEATLEY: "This is surprisingly the first full biography of her. Carretta presents his significant research in this comprehensive study of Wheatley. He uncovered her previously unknown earliest writings...found new information about Wheatley's postemancipation life in Boston and London...he also provides fresh analysis of Wheatley's poetry and gives the reader a glimpse into the lives of both free and enslaved blacks in Colonial New England."

The Post and Courier covered the cupcakes, beer and events surrounding the 125th anniversary of the great Charleston Earthquake; others, such as WLTX TV in Columbia, covered the actual earthquake.

CHOICE reviews for academic libraries highly recommends WHO GETS A CHILDHOOD ("In this timely and insightful study of juvenile justice in Texas, historian Bush...weaves the compelling story of this 110-year conflict between advocates of imprisonment and the proponents of rehabilitation...observing that this is a story repeated nationwide") and BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES (Smith has written a lucid overview of Brazilian-American relations that will be useful to scholars, policy makers, and casual readers for years to come").

Now available:
THE WAR ON POVERTY: A NEW GRASSROOTS HISTORY, 1964-1980
Annelise Orleck and Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, eds.

A MESS OF GREENS: SOUTHERN GENDER AND SOUTHERN FOOD
Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt

THE ACCIDENTAL SLAVEOWNER: REVISITING A MYTH OF PLACE AND FINDING AN AMERICAN FAMILY
Mark Auslander

THE CIVIL WAR IN GEORGIA: A NEW GEORGIA ENCYCLOPEDIA COMPANION
John C. Inscoe, ed.

SOUNDS AMERICAN
Ann Ostendorf
Early American Places series

ENDURING TERRITORIAL DISPUTES
Krista E. Wiegand
Studies in Security and International Affairs series

WARS OF DISRUPTION AND RESILIENCE
Chris C. Demchak
Studies in Security and International Affairs series

THE PRESTIGE OF VIOLENCE: AMERICAN FICTION, 1962-2007
Sally Bachner

SOUTHERN PROHIBITION: RACE, REFORM AND PUBLIC LIFE IN MIDDLE FLORIDA, 1821-1920
Lee L. Willis

Join us at the Decatur Book Festival this weekend

The University of Georgia Press will be at the Decatur Book Festival this weekend, and you should be too, if you can at all swing it, as it is free and amazing.

As Publishers Weekly notes, "In its sixth year, the Decatur (Ga.) Book Festival is bigger than ever, but also running more smoothly than ever—at least, that's how it seems just days ahead of the September 2 keynote address that kicks off two very full days of readings, signings, panels, performances, and even parades."

Books from the press will be featured at our booth, #501-502, on Ponce de Leon near the old courthouse, just behind the AJC's booth.

New press books will be featured at three festival events:
Saturday 10 am
Decatur Presbyterian Church
DAMN GOOD DOGS!
Sonny Seiler and Kent Hannon

Saturday 1:45 pm
Eddie's Attic Stage
Allen Tullos (ALABAMA GETAWAY) and Charles Reagan Wilson (FLASHES OF A SOUTHERN SPIRIT) with Jake Adam York and moderator Hank Klibanoff

Saturday 5:30 pm
Decatur Conference Center Stage (Ballroom B)
DRIFTING INTO DARIEN
Janisse Ray

Several authors with backlist titles at the press will also be featured at the festival:
Saturday 4:15 pm
Old Courthouse
Nikky Finney (THE RINGING EAR: BLACK POETS LEAN SOUTH)

Sunday 12 noon
Cook's Warehouse Stage
Nathalie Dupree (NEW SOUTHERN COOKING, NATHALIE DUPREE'S SOUTHERN MEMORIES)

Sunday 1:15 pm
First Baptist Decatur Sanctuary Stage
Rebecca Burns (RAGE IN THE GATE CITY)

Sunday 3:45 pm
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Natasha Trethewey (BEYOND KATRINA)

Sunday 3:45 pm
Decatur Conference Center Stage (Ballroom A)
Lawrence P. Jackson (RALPH ELLISON)